The last few months have been full of product launches that concern professional as well as personal computer users. Microsoft’s launched the latest versions of two of its most popularly used products worldwide, viz. the Windows operating system and the Office Suite. While the former is still to find complete favor from users, Microsoft is betting big on the latter to come good. However, users who remain unconvinced about Office 2013 can surely consider going for open source software. Below listed are five such free options.
Apache OpenOffice
The development of OpenOffice, which serves as the base for LibreOffice (see below), is now in the hands of the Apache Software Foundation. And although this results in the two office suites sharing a lot of features, the development work on OpenOffice seems slower.
Users beware that there is also a German variant of this program that goes by the name White Label Office. OpenOffice can be downloaded for free from the main project site.
LibreOffice
The undisputed leader when it comes to open source office suite applications, LibreOffice has come a long way since the time it was born out of OpenOffice. Significantly, majority of the popular Linux distributions tend to include LibreOffice.
The software contains six applications that are replete with many features. These applications cover word processing, presentations, spreadsheets and many more. Around fall last year, the software’s download count nudged past the 20 million mark. Free download of LibreOffice is available for Windows, Linux and Mac computers.
OxygenOffice Professional
Yet another office application that builds on the features of OpenOffice, OxygenOffice gets brownie points for goodies such as clip art, templates, fonts, samples, and even support for VBA (Visual Basic Applications). One can download both the 32- and 64-bit versions of OxygenOffice for Windows and Linux platforms.
Calligra Suite
The biggest plus point of Calligra Suite is the way it deals with the issue of compatibility across different platforms, something Microsoft’s Office 2013 excels at. A creation of KDE, the office suite is derived from KOffice. Calligra Suite can be used across different devices like desktop computers, smartphones, and tablets. The suite packs in eight applications that serve purposes like word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, vector graphics, databases etc. Once can download this suite for free in OS X, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD versions.
Feng Office Community Edition
Known earlier as OpenGoo, Feng Office Community Edition, is not only a free tool but is also based online. With Feng Office, users can accomplish document management, task management, time tracking, project management, knowledge management etc. Users can simply create or edit different documents (texts, presentations etc.) online in addition to uploading, organizing and sharing files. While the software itself is free, users can also opt for the professional version of Feng Office that starts with a subscription offer of $59/month.
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